By Henry Srebrnik, [Charlottown, PEI] Guardian

Portugal was both the first and last of the great colonial powers and by the 17th century controlled a vast empire stretching from Brazil in the west to Macau in the east. Not until 1974-75 did it finally relinquish its African colonies, which it considered, after 1951, overseas provinces.

Angola, Portuguese Guinea, and Mozambique were not given up peacefully. Unlike the other colonial powers, Portugal’s overseas interests were considered not marginal but central to its economic existence.

Since the Portuguese state was itself a dictatorship, its people, accustomed to authoritarianism at home, were unmoved by authoritarian rule in the colonies.

So in all three, wars of national liberation were waged for years, mainly by left-wing forces. These groups received military support and training from China and the Soviet Union, and therefore had a Marxist or socialist orientation.

The Mozambique Liberation Front (FRELIMO) was formed in 1962 and under the leadership of Samora Machel eventually gained power, so the Country was at first governed as a one-party state along rigid Marxist lines.

But by the late 1970s, events were proving how hollow had been the victory of FRELIMO. The socialist policies pursued by the Mozambican leaders were proving disastrous on the economic side and Civil War against the regime was also becoming widespread.

An anti-Marxist guerrilla movement called the Nationalist Resistance Movement of Mozambique (RENAMO) began attacking FRELIMO forces and disrupting local services. After a 16-year brutal civil war that ended in 1992, after one million people had died, the two signed the Rome General Peace Accords. Despite sporadic fighting, it was reaffirmed in 2019.

However, the country now faces a new threat, this time from Islamist forces. Extreme poverty, systematic neglect of the population, and conflicts of interest between local, regional, and international powers have provided a breeding ground for radical groups.

What has emerged is a population that is both historically and presently disconnected from the state and state institutions, living in a nearly ungoverned space, lacking in development and infrastructure, resentful of state abandonment, and, unsurprisingly, susceptible to violent extremism.

The conflict has claimed over 3,000 lives and displaced almost another million since the start of the insurgency in 2017 in Cabo Delgado, in the north of the country. The conflict zone is majority Muslim.

In four years the insurgents took control of most of five districts in the northeastern province. Mozambique’s defence forces are widely regarded as corrupt, poorly trained, and ill-equipped.

The region has huge gas and coal reserves and is the site of a $20 billion liquefied natural gas project operated by French energy giant Total.

This past July, President Filipe Nyusi called for foreign help. Rwanda deployed a 1,000-person contingent at Mozambique’s request to support efforts to restore authority. Rwandan forces have now driven out Islamist militants in Cabo Delgado province.

The Rwandan army has also created a 50-kilometre safety zone for the Total gas project. It will retain control of the towns of Mocimboa da Praia and Palma.

“This approach was probably negotiated at the highest political level between Mozambique, France and Rwanda,” according to Elisio Macamo, an expert on African politics at the University of Basel. For France, moving the biggest gas project in Africa forward is vital, and Paris was even prepared to send troops to secure its interests in northern Mozambique.

Throughout 2021 Portugal has been a particularly vocal advocate of increased military assistance to its former colony, and in May 2021 the two countries signed a new military cooperation agreement extending through 2026.

Apart from all this, corruption has become a major concern in Mozambique. A small elite with strong business interests associated with the ruling party dominates the economy.

Between 2013 and 2014, three Mozambican stateowned companies, ProIndicus, Ematum and Mam, took out $2.08 billion in loans. They came from Credit Suisse and the Russian bank VTB, among others. These funds were meant to finance maritime surveillance, fishing, and shipyard projects.

But no projects materialized, and the operation is believed to have covered up extensive corruption for the benefit of people close to the government.

In late August, legal proceedings against 19 defendants began. Ndambi Guebuza, son of former President Armando Guebuza, and Gregorio Leao, former head of the security services, are charged with blackmail, embezzlement, and money laundering.

Manuel Chang, the former finance minister who signed off on the loans about eight years ago, has been in detention in South Africa since 2018. He is charged with accepting $7 million in bribes and awaits extradition.

This, in a country where half of the population of 30 million lives below the poverty line. Its socialist past is now just a memory. Defeating an insurgency militarily will not erase the centuries of socio-political causes driving the conflict.